Monday, November 3, 2008

Halal Jello

Ever since my toddler's allergies were diagnosed, I started an allergy free diet because I am still nursing him. Wheat free, egg free, dairy free, soy free, and peanut free it was. It was not easy. I craved ice cream, I mourned over baked goods, I missed bread, I eyed the bottle of soy sauce with ardent longing.

Now, I'm much better at doing without food that has all the above allergens, and like all mothers to allergic children, I have come to terms with eating allergy free food. In my quest for munchable snacks, I turned to a kind of dessert that I used to eat with gusto when I was a child.

Agar-agar is derived from seaweed. It can also be a substitute for eggs in some cases, and when cooked and cooled, is akin to the western Jello, though I would say that the jello has a different texture. Nevertheless, I call agar-agar Halal Jello. Now let's not open that can of worm, shall we? ;)

When I first came to the United States, I didn't know how to cook, much less make a simple agar-agar dessert (which is very simple by the way). I remember my roommate pouring about a teaspoon of the boiled liquidy agar-agar into a bowl and chucking it into the freezer. I simply looked on, curious. She then took it out and lo and behold, the agar-agar had cooled to a firm jelly-like miniscule slab. We tested it...in our mouth. It was too hard (if I remember it correctly), so we added more water to the boiling agar-agar mixture on the stove and kept stirring.

I seldom make this dessert, but after the allergies, I started making it. But I remember the hassle of this checking process, so I took the trouble to take measurements when I made them. So, I needed only to use the freezer for this in the very beginning, and from thereon after, I kept my measurements for easier future reference.

This is really a nice dish to play around with, in terms of flavoring and design. I guess, it can be categorized as one of those 'cool edible kitchen experiments'. You can also add eggs to the boiling mixture, and produce a rich, interesting textured agar-agar, but since I couldn't take eggs, I experimented only with coconut milk and flavoring. In this case, I decided to make it caramel, after enjoying Shida's delish caramel agar-agar once, a long time ago.

I had the kids brainstorm a name for this particular agar-agar I whipped up, and because of the color, they came up with Cougar (due to the color and the 'gar' in it, for agar-agar). So, Cougar it was.

Meanwhile, make dry caramel (a very informative article on it by David Lebovitz) by cooking the granulated sugar in a saucepan on medium heat. Keep an eye on it because the sugar will melt and turn brown. Stir till sugar turns into a dark amber colored liquid. Quickly take the saucepan off the burner to stop it from burning.

You can use any dish/mould. Malaysians like to use interesting moulds to create interesting shaped agar-agar. I simply used my pyrex dish. You can also use fancy knives or cookie cutters to cut them into interesting shapes if you want.

If you do use a mould, gently slide a spread knife to slide it out of the mould onto a plate. Make sure you have the plate ready, or you might be chasing a runaway wobbly agar-agar on your table or worse yet, your kitchen floor! (thanks to my imagination)

Wonderingn how to clean that dirty sieve? Well, you may want to put the sieve under running cold water so the remaining agar-agar would cool and harden, and you can just peel it off before washing your sieve.

The Pandan leaf adds fragrance to the agar-agar. Omitting it would be akin to omitting vanilla essence, so do without it if you don't have any.

If you cook the mixture too long after pouring in the coconut milk, you might not get the two layered look in the picture above, but the taste will still be the same though.

The Cooks

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